A British medical student was held hostage for two weeks in Ukraine by pro-Russia rebels, it has emerged.

Mohammed Gasim, 21, was reportedly treated as a slave by the armed thugs who captured him on a street for daring to speak English.

He was grabbed in the rebel-held Ukrainian city of Donetsk where he is studying.

Even after being freed, Mohammed was stranded in the war-torn country yesterday because he cannot get hold of his passport or identity papers.

A family friend said: "This has been a nightmare for him and his family. But now we know he is alive we are trying to get new documents for him so he can leave." The pal said British authorities can supply Mohammed, of Hounslow in West London, with the documents if he can prove who he is.

The friend added: "But all his belongings are in the university. He needs his student papers to prove he is British, but he can't get there because the area is being bombed. He is stranded in a friend's flat in Donetsk."

The pro-Moscow rebels, who reportedly forced Mohammed to dig ditches, had claimed online that he was dead.

A Donetsk University official said: "It was near a shop when a Russian man did not like it that our student spoke English. There was a fight, then the Donetsk People's Republic took him."

Mohammed has spoken by phone to his frantic parents after his release.